Peter's Blog

I need to be One more Friendly

My research into the Alchemists Stone told me Maevyn would need to be honoured with at least two factions and revered with a third to make it. Mae was already honoured with the Cenarian Expedition and needed to be honoured with Honor Hold (Honor hold is the name of the place so I won't correct the spelling of honour) to get the recipe to transmute a Skyfire Diamond (presumably cheaper than buying one from the AH). I am further motivated by the Elixir of major agility that Honor Hold would sell me, a hunter pot if ever I saw one. She was 4995 friendly, she needed just 1005 to get to honoured.

More research and I found a quest I hadn't done 'Drill the Drillmaster' that involved killing a level 62 elite and gave 1000 reputation. I did this quite easily, the trash mobs were level 63 and green, it was typical routine grind. Mae was running at 80,000 XP/hour (with rest bonus) and hitting 450dps (including Tiddles) according to DamageMeters and that's with Aspect of the Viper for the mana dribble rather than Aspect of the Hawk for more damage. Despite being an alchemist Mae doesn't routinely use buff pots, she's too mean. The elite wasn't tough, just poured steady shots, arcane shots and multishots into him.

How to get just five more points? I decided to go into one of the Hellfire Citadel instances and kill some trash mobs, I only needed one for five points. So I sent Mae into one of them (Blood Furnace? can't even remember, first one I found) and met a pair of 61 elite guards. Tried to pull one, got both, froze one and killed the other and got four reputation points. Hum, strange only four points, need one more. Killed the frozen guy but no more points. Looked at the character pane and realised Mae was 5999/6000 and had hit some magical barrier where Honor Hold stopped being impressed: soloing instances wasn't good enough.

I left it there, I need to find a way to get one more reputation point. My options for getting that one point may be restricted to:

PvP

but I am proud of my 0/0 tally: so often people say how many thousand kills they have but you never see how many times they have been killed. Mae is on level pegging. It's no less honourable than going to a battleground and hiding behind a bush AFK.

instances

running more instances in (horror) pugs: I could do the typical pug thing of going in, getting my one point and then cya/hearth.

quests

the only honor hold quest I know I have left is Overlord which would be tricky to solo and it would be a bummer if I still wasn't given the reputation.

UPDATE: with 20/20 hindsight, I should have got the instance rep BEFORE doing the last soloable quest. Bah.

In for the Kill

I'm still using Kill Command and I realise now what it is for. I start each fight with my quota of two steady shots which takes enemy health down to about 50% then I wait for it to die. Kill Command is something to think about during this time, it's a little mini lottery game to play, you sit there hoping a crit will happen and the button will light up. It's a bit like fishing. The reward is a pet hit that can do 400-500 damage and the mob dies one or two seconds faster. I'm almost serious, it does make the last half of the fight less boring!

Thanks to reader Spikeles for the floating combat tip, I am now trained to recognise the crits that will set it off without having to concentrate too hard. A big white number does it, sometimes big bright yellow does it but big dirty orange never does it.

So Near

1.7 hours till level 67. Level 68 will be more interesting, snake trap and the option to choose an alchemy speciality. The specialities are transmuting, pots or flasks. To get the latter two you have to run instances but apparently you can also take transmuting and then pay 150g to switch. Specialising gives you about a one in six chance that while performing your alchemy you will get more than one item produced which means pure profit.

Why do I Solo?

If anyone has picked up an emphasis on solo play there are a few reasons:

• I get more satisfaction from soloing: anyone can go in a group and kill elites. Killing that damn level 65 elite bird would make me about 100 times more happy than if I got a 70 to help me (don't think I've given up on it: I am formulating stategies).
• I play in the mornings at erratic times so being in a guild and following a raiding schedule is not an option.
• Bad pug experiences

So why do I play a MMORPG?

• I am hooked on WoW
• Having other players around adds atmosphere.
• It makes auctioning things more interesting: selling things to an AI wouldn't be as satisfying. Would an AI pay 100g for a Dark Whelpling? I think not.

I find the way that the game forces you to group or deliberately restricts the options of those who don't is annoying but not so annoying that I am going to stop playing.

Bird Killing Tactics

A list of tactics to remember for killing the damn bird. The longer Tiddles can stay alive, the more chance of success, hence:

• start fight with stamina scroll on pet
• eat +stamina food
• Elixir of mastery (+15 on all stats including agility and stamina)
• pause fight with freezing trap to bandage pet
• once pet dead, kite bird.
• scope on gun?
• remember to switch from Aspect of the Viper to Aspect of the Hawk
• have run away trinket ready